Ocean liners novels

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Danny Adrianus Post

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Jun 23, 2006
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What fiction novels are there around that deal with the subject of famous or fictional ocean liners? These are the ones that I already have.
What other titles are there around?

Normandie:
* Normandie Affair by Elizabeth Villars
* Crossings by Danielle Steel
* Normandie Triangle by Justin Scott
* Act of War by Leonard Sanders
* The Final Crossing by Harvey Ardman
* First Class Murder by Elliott Roosevelt

Titanic:
* The Memory of Eva Ryker by Donald A. Stanwood

Kronprinzessin Cecilie:
* The Magic Ship by Sandra Paretti

Queen Mary:
* Assault on a Queen by Jack Finney
* The Day They Stole the Queen Mary by Terence Hughes
* Mystery on the Queen Mary by Bruce Graeme

Berengaria:
* Berengaria Exchange by Paul Knapp

Non existent liners:
* The French Atlantic Affair by Ernest Lehman
* The Witching Ship by Frederic Morton
* The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico
* Beyond The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico
* Leviathan by Warren Tute
* Maiden Voyage by Graham Masterton
 
Shelley Dziedzic

Shelley Dziedzic

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Dancing On a Sinking Ship (Kilian)
The False Inspector Dew(Lovesey)
Amanda/Miranda-(Peck)
American Heiress (Eden)
No Greater Love (Steele)

There are numerous juvenile and teen novels about Titanic, most which came out in waves after the Cameron movie.
 
John Clifford

John Clifford

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Dame Agatha Christie had one title, "The Secret Adversary", which begins on the Lusitana on May 7, 1915.

Another novel, "The Man In the Brown Suit" has part of the story set on the ship Kilmorden Castle, but I will wager that was a fictional liner.
 
John Clifford

John Clifford

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We also discussed this in another thread: related: "Ship of Fools", set on the freighter VERA, was based on Katherine Anne Porter's trip on the North German Lloyd liner WERRA (2).
 
Mike Poirier

Mike Poirier

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There was a book called 5 passengers from Lisbon, about a ship sunk during WW2, and a murder in the lifeboat. A nod to the Titanic when you learn a character's father died on the Titanic.
 
Shelley Dziedzic

Shelley Dziedzic

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I think one of the Elliot Roosevelt mysteries is set aboard a liner...title?

Courage at Sea is one of the best juvenile novels about Titanic by Marguerite Vance with incredible line drawings by Lorence Bjokland which was published in 1963.

The Celtic Queen by Brian Dyer is a hard-to-find volume published in 1974 by Mason and Lipscomb and is a mix of fact and fiction about one man's hopes of escaping the poverty of his native Ireland by joining the engine room crew as an apprentice, then working his way up to First Officer aboard the Celtic Queen.
Titanic Crossings by Barbara Williams is aimed at the pre-teen set, published in 1995, it is the tale of a 13 year old boy and his pesky sister who are traveling aboard Titanic with their aunt and uncle.
 
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Richard Glueck

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A paperback I picked up in England called, "The Man Who Loved the 'Normandie'". A naval architect uncovers a German plot to use the sunken liners stern as a platform to sink the "Queen Mary" in the narrows, using an Italian mini-sub. Actually knits several unexplained accidents in the NY-NJ waterfront region together into a ridiculous plot. Oh yeah, the protagonist has sex with a British girl on a tour boat. Can't forget that. Very important.
 
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Alice Boyden

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Two I have that deal with Titanic are Titanic the long night (Dianne Hoh) and Ghost from the Grand Banks (Arthur C. Clarke). Those are adult level. I have 5 or 6 upper grade kid's levels too, occupational hazard.
 
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Danny Adrianus Post

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Jun 23, 2006
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Something's alive on Titanic was awful. ;-)
But I did like Raise the Titanic. But aren't there any novels placed aboard Olympic, Majestic, Bremen, Leviathan, Europa, etc. etc.
 
Shelley Dziedzic

Shelley Dziedzic

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A visual and literary feast for lovers of the Stefan Batory-some even in English!
http://stefanbatoryoceanliner.homestead.com/BooksMovies.html

This one I read-it was not bad-here's the dustcover blurb:

Liner, A Novel About a Great Ship, 1977. (The American ocean liner COLUMBIA, a ship in the same class as the UNITED STATES, is recommissioned in the early 1970s to compete with the FRANCE and QEII.

Success of the ship depends on getting Congressional subsidies and impressing travel agents, but is jeopardized by conflict between the
ship's Commodore, a war hero with little knowledge of passenger service, and the Staff Captain, a capable ship's captain. The conflict
climaxes when the COLUMBIA is caught in hurricane during a trial run with prominent passengers as guests.)

Al Hines' JUGGERNAUT (1974)was a novel before it was a film-both mediocre.
 
K

Kyle Johnstone

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"The Shipbuilders" a 1936 novel by George Blake, concerns the behind the scenes of a great shipyard much like John Brown, and the building of a great liner, much like the Queen Mary.

The 1920's and 30's were a ripe time for novels using liners as a plot line.
"Mr. Knowell" by Somerset Maugham
"Dodsworth" by Sinclair Lewis
and "Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh are a few examples.

BTW, "Brideshead Revisited" the TV miniseries, has about the best interior liner sets built for any production. And the exteriors were shot on QE2.
"Dodsworth" was made into a very fine film, with some very good REX footage.
 
Shelley Dziedzic

Shelley Dziedzic

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"Orphans of the Storm" was the Brideshead episode afloat-and my favorite one. Olive Prouty's bestseller Now Voyager the novel, is even better than the Bette Davis film version.
 
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Kyle Johnstone

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And then there are these...

Murder on the Lusitania
Murder on the Mauretania
Murder on the QE2

All quick, easy reads.
 
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Bill Wormstedt

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Dec 6, 2000
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I disagree with Danny - I *liked* "Something's Alive on the Titanic". Like it enough that I've read it several times.

Yes, it's a ghost story. Yes, it has some historical inaccuracies. But don't they all?

I will be reading it again, in a few years.
 
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Jim Kalafus

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Dec 3, 2000
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So far we've forgotten Lusitania:The Novel. If one skips the first 900 pages of plot development and only reads the second 900 pages (those set on the ship) is is pretty well done and....sad to say....factually a better reference work than several of the non-fiction books on the same subject. That the family around whom the plot revolves is given a miserable and non-resolved ending is a plus on the side of historic accuracy but a bit of a downer for those who like their tales of violent death at sea to have uplifting endings (Cue in My Heart Will Go On and surpress retch)


Normandie and Ile de France make small
appearances in Auntie Mame, and the Mauretania and Normandie turn up in Little Me. Both books by Patrick Dennis.

Though it is not fiction, a few years ago there was a children's book about the Lusitania's Helen Smith, some of the artwork for which could be viewed online. How the author managed to 'work around' or 'not work around' the detail that Helen's father, mother, sister and two cousins all died in the disaster is still a puzzle~ a rather grim ending for the 4-6 year old crowd!

I'm drawing a COMPLETE blank on this- but there was a novel, ca 1912, which used as a plot device (one of many in a labrynth of a storyline) a Lower East Side Gangster who briefly goes straight after falling for an angelic nurse, only to lose her in the General Slocum fire.

And who amongst us who grew up in the 1970s can forget this staple of Anthologies Of The Supernatural For Young Readers, set aboard a liner presumably at the turn of the last century but written in language that would seem neither alien nor confusing to those weened on Dynamite Magazine?

http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/upprbrth.htm

It still makes for a pretty good read.
 
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